Difference Between SSD and HDD - American Technology Products DBA Server Disk Drives

 The acronym for HDD is short for hard disk drive. A hard disk drive  is made up of a series of stacked disks or platters covered by a ferromagnetic coating. The direction of the magnetization represents the individual bits of data. Data is read and written by a head. The disks spin extremely fast while being read or written. Due to these being the only moving pieces of the machine they can be the most fragile. In addition to this making the piece fragile it can often be the slowest piece of the machine. 

The acronym for SSD is short for solid state drive. Solid state drives are a newer storage option. These drives utilize flash storage. Flash storage consists of individual memory cells, storing bits that are instantly accessible by the controller. The lack of moving parts makes them faster and more durable than the traditional hard disk drive. 

Which one do I need?
Well the short answer is: “Depends on what you are using it for”. 

If you are just looking for something that is reliable we would recommend the HDD as they are known to be more reliable than the SSD. However in recent years we have seen great improvements in the SSD to the point where it would no longer be considered a liability to use one as their lifespans are similar to the HDD. 

As far as price is concerned, typically SSDs are more expensive per gigabyte than the traditional HDDs. 

For gaming, the SSD is the best option as it is able to draw pertinent information quickly and will and will allow for smooth high quality game play.